August and September are dreams away. Here’s a post in April.
Since those posts I have drafted multiple, then never posted for having no illustrations to go with them, and not fussing to draw them. I’m not here to be a writer, so they won’t be seeing light.
Last week I turned thirty, and three days later I was shat on by a bird for the first time in my life. It was fine. I think it is always a privilege to get older, so no epiphanies or panics. What 2025 has been, so far, is a year of learning. I have been taking classes in pottery and very-baby-level-German and plan to learn to drive. After a Friday night in where we watched Gardener’s World, the next day we impulsively began a garden in our very small outside space, alongside a vegetable nursery on our windowsills.
When I began learning pottery, I had great ambition to become smooth, accurate, measured. The antithesis of much of my visual work, and perhaps myself. It’s always interesting to become someone you’re not.
But - I was humbled very quickly, and continue to be every time, by clay. I am not a natural to the wheel, and whilst I’d love to spend lots of time at it, for now I have been using hand-building techniques instead to get somewhere in the limited time I have. Slabs, coils. And allowing a certain kind of … thoughtful wobble… not like the other wobbles…
Tenmoku glaze double dipped with white matte, singing in the sun
I have been drawn by function, and a couple of times pressured myself a little to create things with designs on them for the sake of portfolio. What I actually love the most in my house is very plain, designed, objects that are unusual in their form rather than in their pictures. But I do like an owl or twit-two too, and this way comes naturally to me.
I love it a lot. It makes me so calm, and so happy. Glazes, oxides. The Great Pottery Smackdown. The superior twee reality competition -!
Speaking of function- I have set myself and the garden to work. Surprising both of us, my ambitions for the garden are largely FOOD and HERB. Perhaps I am a little underemployed and staking out agriculture. This all said, my biggest dreams lie in the little orange acer tree.
In the spirit of a newsletter, I finally better tell you how you can give me money.
Recently I have made the above set of riso postcards with Raum Für Illustration in Hamburg, and I also made this below poodle riso postcard with my agency Pudel Unlimited! My Etsy shop has re-opened, with older prints on sale discount. Please bear with as I just figure some stuff out for shipping to other locations!
‘Companion’ postcards as a set - [RFI]
Everything else, including postcards individually - [my shop]
*Of course, you can also hire me for illustration work by getting in touch with my agent, Anja Haas ———> hello@pudelunlimited.com*
And I will be appearing in two group exhibitions in Bristol over the upcoming months.
The Sight of Music - Centrespace Gallery, 12th-16th April
I will be hosting a free to attend ticketed workshop, get tickets here. What shape is a sound? Centrespace Gallery, 13th April, 2-3.15pm
As The Crow Flies, A Journey of Memory Through Found Image- The Island, 29th May - 1st June
2025 - year of books
year of cress
,runner beans, radishes, tomatoes
year of passion projects, hobbies
year of songs that are songs,
and year of sun-shine, I think
MF
x
What a beautiful and delightful post. I have also been learning pottery with varying levels of success. I have the opposite problem from you - In my case the wheel moves the clay around and gives shape, with slab work and coiling I struggle to put the materials together.